05/08/2026
Thank you to Humans of Gainesville for River and Root Farms Story read here… 🫐🧺
Words to live by: “ ‘Trust the process – the universe has you.’ As humans we get so into our monkey minds of what needs to be done - the world is bludgeoning us with stimulation that distract us from listening to nature and connecting with God. I find personal salvation by being out here and listening to the trees, the birds, the plants, and the animals.”
“My partner Rebecca and I had been living in the St. Petersburg area. After Helene and Milton exposed a lot of resiliency vulnerability over there, we took a long hard look at what we were doing, and how we wanted to live. We started coming up here a lot exploring the area and it’s beautiful land. We really appreciated the spirit, the ethos, all the beautiful land, and the way it is preserved and protected here. Being a fifth generation Floridian I have a very strong desire to protect the old, wild Florida. So we thought ‘how do we reallocate our resources to live out in the country and build a dynamic business that can serve people?’ We started looking at properties, and this was maybe the third place we visited. It checked all the boxes, so we made the commitment to do this, and have been out here since last July.”
“We’re first generation farmers but committed to permaculture. We want to get out of monocropping and get into building sustainable, regenerative food systems because, as you might know, our food systems are monopolized and broken. It’s making people sick in ways we’re just beginning to understand and accept. We built these systems for scale - we were wildly successful at that - and that scale has compromised our health, our soils, and our waters in emerging ways. And there is intense pressure out there to obfuscate that story. So we want to put our bodies on the gears of progress, so to speak, tell those stories boldly, and build a business around helping people - and ourselves - get back to nature. This property is the first year of a lifelong mission to be advocates for that way of life. We are really grateful for all the support we’ve been shown and know is out there. I plan to spend the rest of my life on this land – I’ll be buried on this land.”
“We are now open for the blueberry u-pick season - today is Day One. It’s very exciting that we made it to this historic first despite our own incompetence as first time farmers. Everything is organic – no sprays, no pesticides - that’s our values. We want to expand our operations into different crops, different u-picks, trail walking, primitive camping, and eventually we’ll have tiny homes out here where people can stay, as well as events such as weddings and concerts. We want to become a premier agriculture destination for North Florida and be a strong advocate for a different way of doing farming.”
“I’m thrilled with the people here and think it’s a really special place. There is just a dynamism about the people of Gainesville - it’s really like nowhere else in Florida. There are just a lot of great people forming the community here around the campus and hospitals that allows something like this to flourish and there is just so much open space. There are a lot of resources where I came from in Pinellas County, a lot of wealth, but it’s totally developed - you couldn’t get 30 acres, even five. Here we have the perfect special combination of resources, commitment, and buy-in, especially at the county level. I can’t speak highly enough about the Board of County commissioners and their staff, and their thoughtful focus on land conservation, small farmers, and on building healthy, sustainable, food-as-medicine, systems.”
- David Tuthill and Rebecca Fox at River and Root Farm David was interviewed on the opening day of organic blueberry picking (that was April 22nd). They are open Wednesdays and weekends, 8 AM – 6 PM or by private appointmen,t out on Racetrack Road. More info at https://www.riverandrootfarm.com/ or follow on FB: https://www.facebook.com/riverandrootfarm
